Click on the video above to watch Episode 148 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.
Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.
The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.
Announcement
Adam: Hey everybody we are live and welcome to episode 148. Man we are closing in on 150 really quick, I know it's not actually gonna be three years but it feels like it. Anyway sorry, quick tangent for everybody there. We're creeping up on-
Bradley: [inaudible 00:00:14] will be three years.
Adam: Yeah that's crazy. I saw that the other day and just we keep seeing the numbers go and don't think about it and then I was like, “Man we're getting awful close to 150.” Anyways, we're glad everybody's here, we got everybody here, we got Roman, we got Marco, we got Hernan, we got Bradley, we got Chris and got myself, I've been in Colorado that's why I'm sporting this brand new hat.
And we're gonna go through some quick announcements after we say hi to everybody. So I'm just gonna go down as I see you guys on my screen, so Chris how you doing?
Chris: I'm good, how are you?
Adam: Can't complain, weather's cooled off, I'm no longer sweating every second of my day so I'm kinda happy. Hernan, how about you, how are you doing?
Hernan: Hey guys, hey everyone, good, I'm here in South Florida, good timing right to be here in South Florida. [inaudible 00:00:59] We're here, we're gonna hold off as much as possible and yeah, we're seeing how things develop but it's looking … I mean it's whatever right? You gotta be prepared and whatnot but yeah, I'm here.
Adam: That's good, yeah we're glad you came up to the US and now you're in Florida so if you don't get washed away you can come to Portland and hopefully you don't get burnt in a forest fire, so you know we're just showing you the best of everything.
Hernan: Right yeah that's pretty cool, I didn't think about it. I'll try to get a bucket of water or something to bring over there. But it's good to be here, I'm excited to get to hang out with you guys soon enough.
Adam: Good deal. Marco, speaking of weather, how's it going man?
Marco: Big big thunderstorm rolling in man. Lots of fireworks, if I cut out, you know why.
Adam: So yeah if Marco suddenly disappears everybody knows what happened.
Bradley: Yeah it's the Google gods pissed off.
Marco: You got the Google police. Nature.
Adam: Good deal, Roman how you doing man?
Roman: Oh not too bad man.
Adam: Good deal. Oh thought you were gonna say something. Alright last but not least, Bradley how are you?
Bradley: I'm peachy, happy to be here.
Adam: Alright, with that we'll hop into it and we're gonna run through the announcements everybody and then we'll get into the questions. I know we got several in the last couple hours there so we want to get to those pretty quick. Unless you've been under a rock you probably know that the RYS Reloaded launch is over, that should have a sad horn sound cued up. But we heard from a few people that missed the launch or missed kind of the very end, you know they were on the fence, they weren't sure whether they were gonna join or not. So the bad news is you can't get it for the launch special. We had people emailing us, it's just sorry that's not fair and it's not gonna happen.
But we did have enough people, we had people contacting us, so we've got a coupon and you can save a few hundred bucks if you were on the fence and you were thinking, “Hey now's a good time to jump in.” Please do it, you got five hours. So if you're watching the replay it might be too late but you've got until 9PM on the sixth of September, which is today. So I'll post that in here in a second and if you want to do that I highly suggest you take advantage of that.
And then Marco, how are things going with the RYS group? I've been in there a little bit, I mean I've seen like Rob is going nuts with some stuff in there, and you guys are getting ready to do your first webinar in September right?
Adam: Shoot, okay.
Marco: Monday will be the first one, we're going to add power to what I call the loop. It's already a power loop, because once you close it, happy things start happening to the money side. I can only talk in general here because I'm not gonna share things that people paid for in the free forum, it wouldn't be fair. I mean if anyone is in the RYS Facebook group, please let people know what's going on, some smart arse [inaudible 00:04:04] No no, nothing happening in there, don't come in. Because they want to keep people out of course. I mean it's that good, they're using it to rank anything they want. And they're asking just awesome questions, they get answered, I try to answer them within 24 hours. I just want to give as much support as possible.
Rob is in there also providing support. And just a word about Rob, Rob is a super … He goes above and beyond spamming. It's like above and beyond the call of duty. There's spammers and then there's Rob, who figures out all kinds of ways to just mess with Google. And it's just his mathematical nature, his research nature, the numbers games that he has to play every day in his day job, because he has a day job and this he does for fun. So it's incredible, the stuff that we're sharing, and what I'm going to share on Monday on how to power up Google my business, not only for local but nationwide, we're going to try to go continental and global on Monday, so I mean that's going to be fun.
So that's what we're up to man.
Adam: Outstanding.
[crosstalk 00:05:30]
Marco: No I'm just saying, if you want to join us fine and if they don't, nearly 150 members that we already have will be very happy that you didn't join.
Adam: Yeah and Rob's got some good stuff coming too, I mean in addition to everything else that you've got planned Marco. I had a quick phone call with him today and so we're doing some discussions about some landing page stuff, so I'm excited I'm gonna be trying to help him out with some of that stuff he's testing.
That's it for now.
Let's see, hopefully everyone here saw this but if you're within driving distance of Portland let us know, we're gonna be there on September … Uh oh. Yep there went Marco.
Bradley: That's what he gets for talking about all that spam.
Adam: Yeah. If you're gonna be around Portland please let us know, hop in and I'm gonna put the link on the page. Come join us, we're gonna do a live Hump Day Hangout, we're starting to scout locations, it's gonna be somewhere inside of Portland. So we're gonna have some sort of a venue set up and we are going to get you more information, and we're asking for a five dollar basically deposit because we only want people who are serious, we don't want 150 people signing up and saying, “Sure I'll be there.” We want people who are serious and we'll go from there. So I think it'd be awesome, I want to have a few people show up, do the live Hump Day Hangout and then obviously talk shop, talk SEO marketing and probably beer.
Bradley: I was gonna say don't forget the beer, I would put that at the first line item.
Hernan: Yeah I think that's a great opportunity since most of the team is gonna be there, I think it's gonna be a great opportunity for put faces to the names and then to get to network with each other because I think that networking has a lot of power. I know that ourselves, every time we meet we get a lot of stuff done for the next 12 months or six months, so if you guys get to come it's gonna be a lot of fun but we're also gonna get a lot of stuff done too. So it's gonna be fun.
Adam: Yeah it's-
Bradley: And anybody that signed up, sorry Adam, but if anybody signed up already I hope you read the fine print, it requires you to buy me a beer if you show up.
Adam: Bradley's gonna be face down.
So I did forget something and I apologize for this. So with RYS Reloaded, I don't know how best to describe this but Marco do you want to tell people basically what's happened with the done for you services?
Marco: Well for some reason, and I can't understand why because Chris and I are always pushing to raise the price as much as possible, and I'm even trying to raise the price of RYS Reloaded since we will be added content. And you know it's ongoing in nature because I'm supporting the group, Rob is supporting the group. And so I'm thinking the price is too low, even where it's going to be eventually at 3K. It's way low. So I'm pushing to get that increased, somehow in pushing for all of these increases I forgot to ask for an increase for done for you services. So right now done for you services are still the old price even though we've instituted the new training.
Bradley: Into the [inaudible 00:08:46] you mean?
Marco: Yeah, the new training is being integrated or has been, that's how they're being done. Anything that was offered from launch day onward has been done according to the new standards. But we're charging the same fucking, excuse me, frigging price. And I can't believe that that slipped. And so we talked about it the other day, I asked for a raise and I got, what did we agree on, $50?
Adam: Yeah across the board it's gonna be $50 and that's gonna be taking place early next week.
Adam: Yeah, so we'll put out a formal reminder instead of … Obviously like Marco said we actually needed to do that but we realized we're not gonna just do it and not say anything. We'll send out a reminder but it is gonna happen quickly. So if you got some stacks or you're doing some projects now would be a great time to head over to SerpSpace.com and get it ordered. If you're joining us for the first time and you've never been to SerpSpace, please head over there, grab your free account, we've got free tools over there. If you're listening and you're not sure what SerpSpace is, if you have any questions, today's a great time to ask. Roman is here, Roman can answer all of your SerpSpace questions as well as a ton of other awesome stuff.
And also if you're just joining us for the first time check out support.semanticmastery.com if you ever have any questions, we put up some of the recurring questions or things we see a lot that are really helpful, and there's diagrams and short video clips over there for some of these questions that can really help you out.
And with that, I think we are through with the announcements, do you guys have anything else?
Bradley: I got one, or two actually. Well it's about the mastermind, so anybody else before I?
Chris: I'm good.
Bradley: Okay so just a quick update on mastermind stuff because we got a lot of stuff coming up for the mastermind guys. Our primary focus going forward from this point on, besides continuing the education and RYS which is part of that program, is we're gonna be developing out the mastermind more and providing a lot more value, and just improving it in multiple ways. So that's something that we're really gonna be focusing on over the next several months, and one of the things that we're doing, well first of all tomorrow we have a mastermind webinar and I'm gonna be breaking down my prospecting funnel that I've been working on for about six weeks now, and it is absolutely crushing it. I'm generating a shit ton of inbound leads from this prospecting funnel that I've got set up for agency services. So SEO, video, video marketing, video SEO, press release or PR marketing services, that kinda stuff. And it's working really well.
Now my sales process could use some work, that's my next phase, because I've got the leads coming in now. Anyway I got the leads coming in now and it's working really really well so anybody that is in the mastermind, be on the lookout for that tomorrow because I'm gonna break it down, we're gonna go through that extensively tomorrow so that you guys can duplicate that same process if you'd like. It is just absolutely crushing it, I've never had such good results with cold prospecting as I have with this new funnel that I've built. So I'm gonna breaking that down, that's number one.
Number two is starting on Monday, September 11th, we're starting the mindset Monday series. That's something that is going to be ongoing, I don't see an end in sight for that. I've got at least 12 weeks scheduled, every single week I'm gonna be providing another mindset video. I'm not sure what format I'm gonna do, whether it's gonna be like a webinar or just a recorded video. It's like just gonna be a recorded video where I share some stuff from my study of mindset and success principles and habit forming and all that kind of stuff. And we've got a lot of really good feedback from when I announced this on the last mastermind webinar, many of our mastermind members said that that was something they were really looking forward to.
So that's gonna be in the mastermind. RYS Academy members, the RYS Reloaded members, will get to see some of it, but in order to see the entire series you have to be a mastermind member, and then I know Hernan is going to take the torch or at least contribute to that series at the end of what I have planned so far. But again that's gonna be an ongoing thing, I think it's gonna be value added. I think that's one of the things missing in a lot of communities and online programs that have to deal with programming is the mindset part of stuff. And because of the feedback we got from two weeks ago when we did the mastermind and I was kind of introducing or announcing this, I see that it's gonna be a winner.
Alright anybody want to add to that?
Adam: I think we're good.
Bradley: No, okay.
Is There A Plugin That Can Show A Thumbnail That Points Users To The Website Where The Video Is Embedded?
Alright so let me get into questions. We got quite a few already, so Angelina, she says, “Do you have info that will show me how to rank on first page of Google with my website?” Well we have lots of info, it's a very broad question. There's more than one way to skin a cat, so we do have lots of training for it, RYS Reloaded would be probably the fastest way right now. There's also many other ways that we can do it, so I'm gonna continue with the question because that's a very very broad question.
“I see lots of ranking in the show with thumbnail and when you click it it will be taken to your website where you have a video embedded. Is there a plugin or course that I can use to accomplish this?” Yeah actually it's really funny that you asked this Angelina because we just covered this I think last week, if it wasn't last week it was two weeks ago on Hump Day Hangout. But right now the best way that I know of is to use the … If you're using WordPress site, WordPress as your site platform, then Yoast, the WordPress SEO plugin for Yoast or by Yoast has an add on or a plugin extension I guess they call it. I don't know if it's an add on or an extension or whatever, but it's called the video SEO add on.
It's not too bad if you're just doing it for like one site or something like that but if you need to put it on multiple sites it can get expensive, because they require you to purchase a license for every site. And they have deals on like 10 packs and stuff, but if you go … We'll just do a search real quick, I'll demonstrate it, but it's the video SEO plugin. I'm just gonna say Yoast. Let's do that one.
And this is it here. And it's a great plugin, if you're using the WordPress SEO plugin it's $89 for a single site license, they also have like package deals if you want to buy, if you're doing it for multiple sites. But that's exactly what you see here, it'll show the video thumbnail, and then when you click the video thumbnail it will actually take you to the webpage or the post that the video is embedded on. There's also, if you do proper object markup, video object markup with schema or structured data, then it's supposed to show as well but I haven't tested that in quite some time because whenever I'm attempting to do that or whenever I want to do that I have the Yoast video SEO plugin, so I'm able to use it on whatever site I want. So I haven't done it with just the video object markup to see, does anybody know if that's still valid?
Okay apparently not. I'm also looking for, what's the other one guys? SISTRIX. You guys remember that? Let's see if I can find that. Here we go, this one. This is another one. You'd have to test this but this is the video rich snippet generator for schema.org markup. It's very simple, you put the YouTube URL in here. Guys I'll post this on the event page, it's sistrix.com/video-seo. But you can paste a video URL in here, YouTube URL, hit generate code, it will spit out the structured data code that you can insert. And it's supposed to show up like this as well, again I have not tested this in quite some time because I always use the Yoast plugin, but it's supposed to do that as well.
The only thing I don't like about this is the structured data, it's basically like micro data. And so what happens is when you embed it into the post or the page, then it comes out formatted weird because it puts like an H2 and the CSS is always very strange, and it puts this great big space between the H2, which it marks up the video title as an H2 tag, but then there's this great big space and it just depends I guess on what … It will conflict with some WordPress themes, because of the CSS. And so it's difficult to modify that, so that's part of the reason why I just started using the Yoast video SEO plugin instead of this, and I've been using that for the last couple years, is because this will kind of screw up the formatting of a page or a post a bit. But it should work.
So this is a free way to do it but you're likely going to have some formatting issues with the page of the post that you'll have to adjust or overcome or just live with. But then like I said the video SEO plugin or add on is also a good resource for that. It's a good question though, we had that question just a week or two ago.
Would You Recommend Creating A Unique Google Stack For Each Location And Another One For All Of The Other Cities For Different Local Businesses?
Okay so that was it. Kyle is up, he says, “I have a few local clients, personal injury HVAT chiropractic that have multiple physical locations and serve many more cities throughout the area. Would you recommend creating unique Google stack for each location, then another one for all of the other cities? Would appreciate your thoughts, thanks for all you guys do.” Marco I'm gonna let you handle that one.
Marco: Yeah I'm not gonna answer it here because we're working on that in the group, and that wouldn't be fair to the group.
Have You Been Using Peter Drew's Google Site Builder?
Jeff is up, he says, “Just checking to see if you guys have been using Peter Drew's Google site builder and if so what results have you been getting?” Marco's been using that a lot, want to talk about it?
Marco: We've been testing it but mainly as a public link network rather than to power up the main RYS drive stack so to speak, because it's all live frames anyway that we work with. And then link building on the problem … Again PLS, public link network, because we're not hiding them, we're leaving them out in the open and we will link to those and since they connect to the main G site they will power up the drive, everything that's in drive and everything that's connected to drive, and happy things are going on. Again, that's going to be covered in one of the upcoming webinars, we have 12 planned. Link building will be covered and how to use G sites. Not particularly Peter Drew's Google site builder, that just makes testing quicker. I want a G site with a full drive stack, even if it's just for a public link network.
Adam: I've been using it more for link building than anything, is to create … One of the things I've been doing with it is you can create a site with I think up to eight pages, or you can create multiple sites. You can go either way. And I've been testing it and using it more for link building, so either for link building direct to a money site or to a Google Maps listing, or to a Google site that's part of a drive stack. So whenever I need a stack I order it from SerpSpace and our guys build it, and then when I get that back the Google site that comes built with the stack, then I will build links to that using Peter Drew's Google site builder. And then basically spam the hell out of the Google sites that were built as a public link network, a PLN, like what Marco just said. And it's been working well for that.
And what's crazy is because they're Google sites, if you spam the hell out of them, so you build a crap ton of links to those Google sites, a lot of the times those Google sites end up ranking. And that's what's good about it guys, that's why it's powerful as a private link network, excuse me, a public link network type of builder, because you can spam the Google sites, the Google sites end up ranking, and a ranking site that is linking to your target URL is a good signal. So because it's a Google property you can spam it and it will oftentimes rank for longer tail keywords and now because it's ranked on page one the relevancy passes through to your target URL which can be like I said, it can be a money site, it can be a Google Maps URL, it could be the Google site from a drive stack, it could be whatever you want it to be. Those are typically my three target URLs.
So it's a really strong … It's a great way to build buffer sites quickly that you can then spam.
Marco: So maybe we should call them public ranking networks. So they themselves will rank. And actually what you're creating and what I'm doing also which is basically the same thing, it's dealing with the distance graph algorithm that I talked about. It's coming on two years, when I talked about what was gonna happen with [inaudible 00:23:30] and how you had to change it up. And so that's exactly what we've been doing, we just, as soon as we hear about it we just move on, start implementing things that will be ready for when Google decides, “Okay we're going to kill that, this is how we're going to kill it and we're moving on and this is how we're going to look at links now.” Right? We talked about this for quite a long time, how Google is [inaudible 00:23:52] in between links, how far they're going. And that all has to do with the distance graph algorithm.
Bradley: Alright next part of that is, “Now that RYS Reloaded has come out, when we purchase from SerpSpace are all the new features included in the purchase?” You mean the done for you drive stacks? Yes, Jeff. Those are all implemented as of launch day, so drive stacks that are ordered now all have the new methods incorporated in them. Guys don't think that if you ordered drive stacks prior to RYS Reloaded that they're no longer any good, they're still very effective, they're still working. So you don't need to go update those, it's not necessary, it's just anything that you order from this point forward or as of launch day forward, will be built under the new specifications.
How Important Are Hyper Local Citations?
Mohammed, those are absolutely super powerful. Those hyper local citations are more powerful than anything you can get online through services, and the reason why is oftentimes the more difficult it is to get listed, the more valuable it is. Right? And that's because it's more difficult, you gotta jump through hoops. So if you're willing to jump through the hoops those hyper local citations can be some of the most effective, because a lot of the times your competitors won't be doing it either because their SEO guy is lazy or just doesn't know about it. So if you're willing to do that I can tell you hyper local citations are often all that is needed to push you over the edge or in other words to outrank competitors and to give you that edge. Hyper local citations.
That and also very industry specific citations. So what's nice about hyper local citations is it doesn't have … It's more about a very focused geographic directory, so like a chamber of commerce for the local city, that's a good one. Local blogs, those are also great. Local newspapers. Anything like that, even like the local Pennysaver type magazines and things like that, oftentimes will have a small fee to get listed in them, like $25 per year or something like that. It's totally worth it because again most other SEO companies and marketing companies aren't gonna go through that trouble to get their clients listed, because they're gonna go the easy route and go to BrightLocal or SerpSpace or Loganix or Marketer's Center or whatever and they're gonna go order citations from there and those are very much automated, in many instances anyways.
So if you can go through, if you jump through those extra hoops to get listed in those or pay the fees or whatever, you should see a significant increase in ranking position. That's been my experience anyway.
Something that you should also … If it's gonna be a service that you're gonna be providing because it works well, then I would train a VA to do that because it is a very manual process, so I would train a VA to do that kind of stuff and then that could be like their full time gig is just to create citations. Like first of all locate, hunt down hyper local citations, and then figure out what the process is to get listed, and then actually do the process, complete the process to get listed. Alright?
Can You Link To A Related Article And The Top Page In A Single Post?
Number two he says, “A few weeks ago you guys advised to include some variation in simple silos and link to other articles in the category rather than the top page all the time. My question is can I link to both a related article and the top page of the post or should I stick to one link?” No absolutely Mohammed, you can link to as many other articles within the same silo as you want. What I recommend is don't force additional links into the post, it's really unnecessary. If it naturally occurs like a good instance, if there's a natural occurrence of a time that would make sense to link to another article or page, so either another post or another page within the silo, within the same silo, then it makes sense to do so. There's no reason first of all to just put one link in every post. You can link to as many other posts that are relevant to that one, and if it's in the same silo it's likely that a lot of the other supporting posts are also relevant.
Now like I mentioned, you don't have to force it in, but if you have a keyword or whatever that occurs in a post that you could use as a natural link point to another supporting article within the same silo, absolutely do it because that kind of mimics what we talk about with spider silos, like what we do with the drive stack stuff that you can get when you order done for you drive stacks right? It's just interlinking all within the same silo, and it's very very powerful.
So don't force it, but if it occurs naturally it's a great opportunity to kind of just spread the love around within the silo.
Roman: Yeah I find a lot that people are really conservative with links and they don't necessarily need to be as much as they are.
Bradley: With on page, internal links you mean?
Roman: Yeah, exactly, with on page links. Why limit? I think it's better to take that approach from that perspective than start really scared and worried that I can't have more than five links or I can't have more than this, and I think that stems from misconception of link juice back from way back when when everybody thinks that it's [inaudible 00:29:45] It's not true. If you set up a page on your website, that's a linking opportunity for other pages on your website. And that's how it needs to be viewed.
Bradley: I totally agree. I think a good internal linking structure is one of the most under utilized aspects of SEO. I see that mistake a lot, is that people aren't linking enough internally, kind of like what Roman was just saying. Because again probably it's just a traditional what do they call it, conventional wisdom, which is oftentimes wrong, especially in the SEO industry, that I don't want to bleed the juice, the link equity that's coming into this post too much. Well if it's all within the same silo it's okay guys.
I mean and look, it's okay to link outside of the silo, I prefer to do that with a no follow link, but it's perfectly okay to do that. And just the same as like outbound links from posts guys, it makes sense to link to multiple sources that can reinforce the theme of a post or page right? It's up to you whether you want to do no follow or follow, I personally no follow them, I know Hernan, he has a difference in opinion, but I personally no follow outbound links but I like to link to lots of sources that can kind of confirm or validate the content. Because Google will crawl those links and they'll go, “See okay well this content that he's linking to is also relevant.” It reinforces or supports the theme of the post or the page. And so it just makes sense to do so in my opinion.
Roman: Absolutely, I mean if your main goal … A lot of times peoples goals are to get links from authority sites right? So it makes sense that we should also be linking out to authority sites. That's another signal, right?
How Do You Know The Stats Of People That Click On The Video Tab In Search?
Bradley: Absolutely. Okay Laurie's up. Hey Laurie, haven't seen you in a while. She says, “Hey everyone, I asked this in the Facebook group but didn't get an answer so I thought I'd try again. We have a potential client asking what the stats are for people to click on the video tab and search. The comment was I don't know anyone who searches the video tab for anything other than how to do something, they're only worried about organic rankings which eventually can happen with a video but not always that quickly. We tried to find info on stats for this video tab but nothing really comes up.” Does anyone have any insight on this, maybe a good way to answer this question?
I don't have anything for that, I mean I search the video tab sometimes to see if … If I do a video SEO campaign and I don't see the video on the first two or three pages from universal search, then I will check the video tab to see where it falls within the video tab. That's called a vertical search, the video vertical search. And I'll go look at that to see where it lands in there, and it's interesting because sometimes you'll see a video that's like a number one in video search but you don't find it at all in the top 10 pages, the first 10 pages of universal search. And what's interesting is you'll see like the video number two in the video search, will actually be ranked in the first couple of pages. But yours is actually above them in video search, but then it's not showing up.
I just was looking at one this morning that is experiencing that specific phenomenon right now. And it's interesting that that happens and it's just because they are two different searches though. So the video search, it may be outranking all the others but then not showing in universal which typically means just give it time and it will end up showing up in universal search ahead or above the other videos that are listed underneath of you in the video search, if that makes sense. I know that probably sounded a bit confusing.
But as far as like if a client was to ask, I just never show them anything about the video tab. If I have an inquisitive client that looks on that kind of stuff and then asks about it, then I'll just explain to them similarly to what I just did just now, which is that's called a vertical search, you're right, it's not typically something that people will click to. We do as SEOs, we look through to it as kind of an indication as to how well our video is optimized, but really if it's not showing in universal search, in my opinion, there's traffic in YouTube.
So I do oftentimes talk to clients and say, “Listen, you're not ranked in universal search on page one yet, however you are ranked …” And if you've done video SEO, if you've optimized a video properly you're likely gonna be ranked number one in YouTube, especially for local stuff, for the specific keyword. And so I do point to YouTube though. I don't point to video search, the vertical search from Google. I do point to YouTube though and say, “Look, while I'm still working on getting it ranked in Google search, then it's showing in YouTube and YouTube can produce some traffic.” So I just try to avoid discussing the video tab at all unless they particularly bring it up. I don't draw their attention to it, in other words.
Anybody else?
Hernan: I agree with you Bradley.
What Is An Effective Process To Send Out Proposals Without Having To Chase Clients?
Bradley: Scott says, “What is an effective process to send out proposals without having to chase them or be used by the prospect to shop around other proposals? I feel like I'm in a week position once I release a proposal.” Put a deadline on it Scott. Put a deadline on it, seriously. I mean that's the best way to do it in my opinion, say, “Look, this is proprietary proposal, you got 24 hours to make a decision, to sign the proposal, or else this becomes null and void.” And you can put that right in the proposal, that language right in the proposal.
That's how I've always done it, sometimes people are gonna go shop around anyways, but you have to stay strong on your position though. You have to. If you're gonna do that you have to stay strong, you have to say, “Look, this proposal at this price expires in 24 hours.” That means if they're gonna go shop around they better do it real fast, because otherwise the price goes up. I'm not saying that you won't take them on as a client but I always put like a, “If you sign today then it'll be this price, if you wait until tomorrow it's gonna be this price.” Type of thing. That's what I've done.
Roman: Yeah so I love the idea of urgency with that, that makes a lot of sense. One of the other things that I'm picking up on here is he's saying that he's got a weak position once he releases the proposal, and I'm wondering if he has a conversation with the client and then just sends them a proposal rather than walk them through the proposal. If you spend the time to walk a client through the proposal a lot of times you can close them right there on the spot if you have sales abilities. If not then it's gonna be some period of time afterwards but you really need to walk them through the proposal. I feel personally that that is a very important part of the process, unless they're completely sold beforehand.
If you know that they're already sold and done, you can still walk them through the proposal because I think that's a trust building exercise. If somebody hands you a 10 page document and saying that they're gonna do all this stuff and yada yada yada, whatever it is that the proposal you're sending them, it makes sense that you should walk them through it. Especially if your prices is thousands and thousands of dollars.
Adam: Also I just wanted to say too that Wayne put something up there on the page too which is good, he's just basically saying he quit sending out proposals without going through it online or in person, and if the client [inaudible 00:37:24] at that just tell them that's how we do business. So basically the same.
Bradley: Well I mean you can frame it as I'm protecting my propriety methods and processes, and so if you … I'm happy to jump on a join.me session or whatever, join.me is what I use, and just get on a session with them so they can see my screen and I can just walk them through the proposal. Sometimes if I have a good rapport with a prospect, like if it's a referral client, which is typically how most of my proposals are generated because they were clients that were referred to me from existing clients and so I don't really have to worry about that so much.
And so oftentimes what I'll do is draft a proposal and then I'll record just a screen cast video where I walk through the proposal and send it to them. But if I think that they're shopping around, then I will do it on a live like join.me type presentation so that they don't actually have a physical copy of it, I do, until they decide whether … If they agree to sign it then I'll send it to them, if not then I'll say, “Well then shop around, do whatever you gotta do and get back to me when you've made a decision. If you sign today it's gonna be this price, if you sign tomorrow it'll be this price.” Kind of thing.
Roman: And that's really interesting too about the clients shopping around, because if a client's shopping around then you need to be paying close attention to your positioning of what you're selling. Are you selling yourself as a consultant, as a trust advisor to that person or are you selling yourself as an SEO service?
Bradley: A commodity.
Roman: If you're positioning yourself as a commodity, exactly, then you're gonna be compared to everyone else. People are going to shop around. And of course what do you think it's going to be, it's going to be the lowest price, right? And we all know that's not how this works, but they don't.
Bradley: One of the things I've found to overcome that is when doing a proposal I like to wow the client with how much reporting I can show them as far as like where they currently stand and the opportunities that I see that can be improved upon. For quick wins as well as long term gains, that kind of stuff. And that's oftentimes how I'll win a proposal or a client, because I'll send them information. Like for example I did have a referral client for a preschool. I've never done any preschool work, like marketing for preschools before. But one of my oldest clients has given me, or referred them to me.
So I sent him a bunch of reports. He has two different locations, so he had two websites and I basically went through and analyzed everything fine tooth comb, I did a really nice reporting, and then I did a bullet point on a Google Doc as well as a screen cast video explaining everything. The video ended up being like I don't know, 27 minutes long, it was crazy. It was way longer than I wanted it to be, but I sent it to him with all the reports plus the proposal or the doc with the line by line items and all that stuff. And he replied back and said, “Wow.” He goes, “I've talked to four other marketing companies and I've never had anybody go through as much detail.” And he was sold right then and there, and that was before I even pitched him on the proposal, that was just on the, “Hey this is what I see” type of thing, and that really really works well. Because you can create that kind of trusted advisor status that Roman was just mentioning.
Roman: Yeah it's providing them insight into their own business right, at the end of the day. You're showing them their own information and helping them understand it and what they're seeing, you're providing insight into their business, that you can't stand from a stronger position than that.
Hernan: Yeah, if I can add because I think that this is a great conversation to have. I think that walking through the proposal is key, and I really agree that you either jump on the phone with them and tell them right there and then. I usually, what I like doing is to prescreen as much as possible, meaning I don't talk to people unless they are 100% sure that I'm gonna charge them X amount of money, and that they need to be investing their money. I am that disqualifying when it comes to talking to people, even if it is on a consulting funnel, if they need to come up with a form, like I usually don't talk to people or I try not to talk to people that they're just hunting for prices or they're just shopping around. So that's number one. So I think that going through the proposal and adding as much value as possible on the proposal itself plays a big role, number one.
And number two I think Scott that if you're, as Roman was correctly saying, if you're positioning yourself the right way you shouldn't be worrying on being strong because you're pretty much the next logical or the only logical solution that understands their business and that they can make them grow. So I would combine those two and also if you are worrying about how strong your position is after you send the proposal, I think and this is my opinion, that your pipeline is not full enough, that you're not getting as many calls as you could get or you're not getting as many leads quote unquote for you to talk as you could possibly get, because that way you don't get care about that proposal that much. If you're sending like one proposal or you're having like one conversation a week, that proposal could be a deal breaker, so you put a lot of stress on it.
Bradley: Yeah and the last part of that, I want to add just really quickly, is just to agree with Hernan and say that once you get enough leads that you're talking with then no single lead is going to make or break your business. The way that you portray yourself, the vibe that you put out, the tone of your voice, the way that you speak, the confidence will show through when you know that you've got eight other prospects that you're talking to or gonna be sending proposals out this week, then that one proposal isn't such a big deal whether you win or lose it, and you can be more confident in your pitch or in your proposal in saying “this is it, take it or leave it.” I mean you don't have to be rude, I'm just saying in your own attitude and the way you approach it will be at a much … You'll be in a much higher position of strength because you're not relying on that one proposal being accepted to make or break your business, if that makes sense.
Roman: Absolutely, confidence is huge.
Bradley: Yeah absolutely. Confidence is … And that comes with experience as well as filling your pipeline with enough leads. And that's something that I'm working on for … Like I said we're gonna be breaking down a prospecting funnel tomorrow in the mastermind that is just freaking crushing it. So my sales process still really sucks right now, I'm not gonna lie, but the prospecting side of it's really starting to pan out.
R Bacon's up, we got to roll through a couple of these.
Chris: Before you go on, let's put it out there, you are making sales. Not as many as you'd like to, but you're still closing.
Bradley: Yeah, yeah. I mean we're burning through a lot of these leads rather quickly because we're still fine tuning the sales process, but yeah I closed a big contractor on Friday last week, a big one, so that's really good.
Do You Recommend Using Separate Tier I Rings For Each Subdomain Or Can You Create A Branded Ring That Can Be Used For Multiple Sites?
R Bacon says, “You mention using separate sub domains for each rank and rent site to protect them, do you recommend using separate tier one rings for each sub domain or can you create a branded ring to be used for multiple sites?” R Bacon I always like to do one branded ring for multiple sites, and then I try to accomplish my ranking goals with that one branded ring because first of all it's less expensive, it's less work, it's less maintenance. I always try to achieve results with the least amount of effort, right? But what happens is if any one of the particular sub domain sites or locations that are gonna be on sub domains aren't responding all that well to your content marketing syndication, all that kind of stuff, then you can always build a location specific ring or syndication network for that particular sub domain.
So that is my standard operating procedure. If I'm gonna build let's say a four location set of sites, then I'm gonna do each one on a sub domain and then I'm gonna build the branded tier one ring and that's it, and I'm gonna start content marketing from the root domain blog, typically, so that instead of content marketing from each sub domain I do it from the root domain from the blog that's actually hosted on the root domain. And then from there I'll just have categories that match up with each one of the sub domains and I'll start posting content via those categories that will be specifically pushing links to the sub domain sites.
If something happens where one of those sites or two of those sites or whatever aren't responding all that well, they're not moving as quickly as I would like, then I'll go have a location specific network, tier one branded network. And so it'd just be, like if it's Joe's Plumbing and you've got four locations and one of them is Fairfax, Virginia, and that one's not really ranking all that well, then I'll do Joe's Plumbing Fairfax. You just add the location modifier to the brand and that's what distinguishes it apart from … It still makes that connection with the brand, but it adds that location specificity to it which will help to give it an additional push. If that makes sense.
Let's see, he says, “Also what identity to use for setting up terms of service page or to use one on a rank and rent site?” Terms of service page? Yeah I mean that's pretty much standard, you need to have that terms of service privacy policy. DMCA is also another good thing to have. I put it on the root domain, and then I just link from each one of the sub domains to the root domain page, because it's all the same brand. It's not necessary to have a terms of service page on every sub domain, it doesn't need to be. You can just put those on the root domain and link to those in the footer from all of the sub domain sites. And they'll follow those links by the way, you don't need to push juice to those.
Alright Robert's up. Shit. Adam said there was a question about SerpSpace that needed answered.
Bradley: Which one's Robert? Oh Robert's in the mastermind?
Adam: Yeah I believe he just joined recently I thought, but we could copy that over and go into depth on that tomorrow I think would be a good one.
Chris: He just joined today I think.
Bradley: Well if Robert joined that's awesome, welcome Robert. Yeah I'd love to cover … Just know that tomorrow I've got a full entire two hour webinar already planned, it's gonna be difficult to get to many questions tomorrow. Of course we're gonna leave some time for some questions guys but I'm gonna be breaking down the prospecting funnel tomorrow as well as walking through the best practices for setting up a new Google My Business listing as per the request of Damon Green, one of our mastermind members. And I promised him yesterday that I would do that on the mastermind tomorrow. So Robert, if nothing else you can repost this question as just a thread in the mastermind community and we can start chiming in there. And if we have time tomorrow during the webinar we will as well.
What Is The Best Way To Use RSS Authority Sniper With RYS?
Okay Siegfried says, “I watch RYS Authority Sniper webinar and [inaudible 00:49:47] you folks put on, what is the best way to use this with RYS?” Probably a good question for Marco.
Marco: Yeah actually we've never had the need to pull authority from anybody except Google into RYS. I mean that's the whole point of RYS, it's just living in the belly of the beast, and drawing from that power. But I'm sure, since we have a way to produce a feed burner feed, and you mix those with the Authority Sniper feeds, they would feed off each other. So I'm sure you could work that in but we generally don't need to go that far to rank for most of the stuff that we're targeting.
Bradley: Yeah. That rank feeder creates co citation which is a way to inject authority or pass authority back to your target URLs without there actually being a hyperlink from the authority properties. It's kinda like guilty by association right? You associate your link among others that are relevant in authority or popular content, that type of stuff. And so that creates co citation and passes some of the relevancy over to your target URL even without there being a physical or a hyperlink between those sources. So I can see one thing that you could probably do though is using the rank feeder you could take some of your drive stack files, file URLs, and add them as sticky items inside the feeds along with sticky items in the feed, along with relevant content sources, the feeds from relevant content sources. Because those will update but your sticky items remain static. And so because it's a Google property you can actually siphon some of the authority from those Google properties, even if it's just drive files, I would stick with the higher quality drive files that can actually convert, like slides or drawings if they're done well or maps even, things like that, those would be good sticky items to add into that rank feeder feed. If that makes sense.
By the way guys you could put Google Maps URLs in as sticky items. You can put maps URLs in there, Google sites, I mean there's a lot of stuff you can do there with the rank feeder, it's a very powerful tool, rank feeder is. I don't use the RSS Authority Sniper, I do all my RSS locating manually, I get better results, but the rank feeder which is the monthly service, that's super powerful.
We've only go about five minutes guys. I want to answer this question because he asked so I'm really sorry Ryan we're gonna skip over yours and a few of you guys, I apologize for that but Adam said this-
Adam: Yeah real quick you guys, if you're listening still or on the recording Ryan, if you guys don't get your questions answered okay it's first come first serve, but I'll post the link. Go join the Facebook group if you have it, we've got a free Facebook group, hop in there and ask your questions, people will help you out if they have got answers for you, for giving you best blog fundamentals or getting you started. People can definitely point you in the right direction, so I'll post that Facebook link right now.
Excuse me let me try this real quick. And then I'm gonna jump on that other question Adam, sorry. NatashaNixon.com this is not an affiliate or anything guys I'm just telling you that I use the authority content service, so if you go to the services you'll see authority content, and I use this service when I need something done quickly and my writer's too backed up to get it to me. I use Natasha Nixon's authority content service and you can go up to a 2000 word article. It's 160 bucks but they're good articles, like I'd say 90% of them come back with no revisions needed or just very very minor revisions needed. And you can probably contact her and find out if they … She'll probably give you a custom quote on a 3000 word article if you needed it.
Roman: Yeah they've been around forever. I mean I've been using them since I got into SEO, so they've been around for a very very long time.
Bradley: Good service, it's a good service.
Roman: And the worst part is it's owned by a guy.
Bradley: Oh really? He knew that it would sell more if he portrayed himself as a female, right. That's brilliant.
Okay Anthony's up, we're gonna answer this question and then we gotta wrap it up guys. Anthony says, “Hi, this question is about SerpSpace. First, single syndication networks ask for logo and company info, is this the brand or the company?” Well it would be the brand right but typically those are one and the same. They're usually congruent. The brand and the company is usually the same. Now that's not always the case but likely it is. But I would go with whatever the public facing brand is for the website, which is gonna be your point of origin for content. I would brand your network for that.
Can You Provide PDFs That Show The Complete Flow Chart For The Single Syndication Network Product And Other Products In Serp Space?
Adam: Well that and also I'm just gonna say because we don't have that so that's something we can do but Bradley, since you got your screen up, can you go to SerpSpace? Because also I want to show off the sexy redesign that Roman just finished on. But also that, I forgot who was asking the question sorry. Anthony. You can go there and if you've already got your account, if you're logged in you can go through there and see all the steps that you need to do. Or if you're not sure, before you place your order, feel free to contact support on the site via the little pop up and they will totally walk you through it. And we're happy to show you this stuff now and I'll let Bradley now that he's got it up go through there.
Bradley: Yeah. I'm sorry go ahead Roman.
Roman: No I was gonna say I was absolutely agreeing with that. Contact any of our support guys, I think for the most part they're on about 18 hours a day so they can answer any questions you guys have. In regards to this specific field and things like that.
Bradley: Yeah and what I would recommend, I agree like having a PDF on that first page that you can click a link and it opens in a new tab or you can download it and look at the flow, like the ordering process flow chart essentially, that is a really good idea. So we can improve that.
Adam: Well I'm gonna give a little secret out too, you don't actually, unless Roman you updated this, you don't actually have to upload an image. So you can put something in and then click continue and see what the other fields are.
Bradley: That's what I was just getting ready to say is you can just walk through this and just put demo text in for each one of these, until we get the PDF done or the flow chart done, you can just go through and just put demo text in each one of these fields, and just keep clicking continue. You don't have to make the purchase at the end, you just click through and say, “Okay this is what I need, make a note of it.” But we will resolve that, that's a great idea.
Roman: Yeah absolutely, and one of the next major pieces that I'm gonna be trying to work on is moving the order forms into the back end as opposed to on the front end. And that's gonna make it easy for people to order this because they can save their orders in the back end, so they can come back to it later if they're missing some key piece of information and just have it all displayed in one area. It'll be a lot easier to order that way. So that's the token system that I'm gonna be trying to move towards in the next few months.
Adam: Awesome, Anthony says he likes the new site so thumbs up Roman.
Roman: Awesome, thank you.
Bradley: And Wayne thank you for that awesome comment man, I'm really proud of this prospecting funnel that I've put together because that's why I started building that new agency guys is because I kinda wanted a second chance. I built my agency from scratch the first time not really knowing what the hell I was doing, and now many years later I'm starting over again with a new agency because I wanted to build it right this time and make it scalable, and something that can be duplicated. And that's part of the reason why I'm really stoked about this prospecting funnel because man if I would have known then what I know now, well I probably wouldn't be here as part of Semantic Mastery because I'd be running some big ass agency. You know what I mean?
But you know it's really really powerful and obviously the mastermind members I want to share it with you guys because I know a lot of you guys in the mastermind are doing client work and this should help to really fill that pipeline full of leads so that you don't go through what … Who was it that asked about the position of strength? The proposal. Somebody was talking about the … Oh Scott Lanberg. The go to problem that Scott was having with being so … Placing all of your attention and energy on one proposal like we mentioned, if you've got multiple proposals to give out during one week then no one of them are so important that you stress out over it, and that's really what having a pipeline full of valid leads is, will provide for you.
Adam: Real quick you guys, I know we're about to push over but Bradley can you cover the Click Star Marketing? I just realized because we were talking about RYS stacks going up in price shortly, and he was asking, I assume he/she, was asking about drive stacks, so if we could touch on that real quick.
Can I Order The Google Site And Twitter SEO At A Later Date Or Do They Need To Setup At The Same Time?
Bradley: “Hey guys I'm interested in purchasing some drive stacks for some clients, can I order the Google site and Twitter SEO at a later date or do they need to be set up at the same time?” That's a good question. Roman?
Roman: Yes so the Twitter piece of it can be ordered after the fact. So I would get the Google site though at the same time.
Bradley: Yeah. Absolutely get the Google site because that's like part of … In my opinion that's the linchpin of the drive stack now. I mean if you've got your own site builder and stuff like that that's one thing but the beautiful thing about the Google sites is that it's basically automated, all your drive files get added to the Google site automatically and it'll save you a ton of work and time and it's very very effective.
Roman: Yeah the Twitter SEO one, I just adjusted some of the syndication network stuff but basically we can leave a note just in there and I'm gonna have another check box to select for a Twitter syndication. It was in the old design but I had to scrap it briefly, so it'll be back up soon.
Bradley: Nice. He says also, “How much more effective is a stack with a Google site?” Well we just answered that. “Will I be provided with the spreadsheet with each of the stacks in it?” Yes. You get a spreadsheet with all the links. That's sent out with the delivery of the stack.
Alright we got to wrap it up guys, we're already over. Sorry about that. Any question that didn't get answered guys either save it for next week or post in the Facebook group and somebody will get to it. Okay thanks everybody for being here, appreciate it, and come join the mastermind if you have it. Tomorrow's gonna be a really good day. And next week on Monday we start the mindset series so.
Alright thanks everybody.
Adam: Bye everybody.
Roman: See ya.
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